Resurrecting History
by Deboritum
Summary: Zorah is the Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, and is trying to get her family back in order. When she goes to Skyrim to find one of the last sanctuaries in business, she runs into some trouble with the Imperial Legion, and the rest of Skyrim for that matter. Rated M for violence, language and sexual themes.


This is a re-make of most of the Skyrim Dark Brotherhood storyline. I'm changing it a lot to make it more interesting. We all know what happens and we've all probably read a million different versions of it, but this will be much different. So, I'm giving it a shot. Hope you enjoy it.

**Resurrecting History**

Chapter One: The Falling of the Brotherhood

The Penitus Oculatus will be in Bravil soon, I can hear the Night Mother speaking. What is she telling me? These words are making no sense, it's as if I'm falling… focus Zorah. Focus and Listen.

"_Zorah, Listener, Daughter. So many names, my child. Come to me, Listen to my words_."

Blindly, almost unconsciously, I stumble over to the spectral Matron. She's so surreal…

"_Daughter, you must save me. Take my body far from here. Carry it back to Cheydinhal Sanctuary. It is our only hope_."

"…yes…" My arm hurts _so much_. It's still pouring blood. I must save the Night Mother though. She's our chance at survival, and we can't be a Brotherhood if we don't survive. Burn up into the Void forever… that is _not_ going to happen, not while I'm the Listener.

"Garnag, grab the Night Mother's body, and be careful. We're getting out of here," I yelled. It was hard to hear down here with all the noise coming from above.

The Orc nodded and picked the delicate body off the stone slab as gently as if she were a sleeping child. He nodded again and headed for the stone staircase, casting an invisibility spell before descending into the night. I followed behind him, chanting the Black Sacrament quietly in honor of the ancient crypt.

zzz

"Listener, wake up."

I grunted and opened my eyes partially, seeing strands of brilliant red hair and golden-brown eyes.

"Good morning, Cicero. I'll be out in a minute." I stretched and gave him a twitch of a smile. I'm really not in the spirit of early morning awakenings, but this is an exception. There's a lot to do, and a lot to say. We need to mend the Brotherhood of the damage these _fiends_ have done to us.

But before that, I need some coffee. And a healing potion; my arm is really hurting now. Damn archers…

I stood up and watched as the big wooden doors swung shut. They'll need repairing as well, seeing as how old they are. Looks like they'll fall right off the hinges. This whole room looks like it's going to crumble any second, actually. The bed – well, the bed underneath it. The bed was made of stone, but I put a mattress on top of it for obvious reasons. This room was originally owned by an ancient vampire who went by the name 'Vicente Valtieri'. He'd been one of the Brotherhood's oldest members until… well until my mother killed him… I don't really want to talk about that. I'm just going to say this sanctuary had a bad mishap with a Purification Ritual that I don't want to get into.

It's not that it upsets me, I just don't know all the details. You'd be better off learning that from my mother, but she's dead… as is my father. Another discussion for later.

I put some robes on and walked out to the main hall. Garnag, Rasha and Cicero stood around a large, metal coffin with intricate patterns carved into the sides. It was enormous, large enough for about three bodies.

"What's this?" I asked, peering into it. The Night Mother's corpse was inside, held in by strong leather straps and an enchantment that I could feel from ten feet away.

"After you and Garnag brought the Night Mother here, we retrieved a coffin from the catacombs beneath the sanctuary. This one seemed the most fitting," said Cicero.

"You did? I don't remember everything from last night." It went by so fast, like a blur. I can fit bits and pieces together, like the Penitus Oculatus destroying the crypt, and me telling Garnag to grab the Night Mother – well, her body that is. And I most certainly remember being shot at. Damn arrow was poisoned, and probably would have killed me had it been shot somewhere else. That should heal fairly quickly though, so I'm not going to run around screaming my head off about my arm. That wouldn't be very mature, and I'm sure everyone else would begin to question my authority.

"Listener, we need to start locating other sanctuaries and members," Rasha cut in, "I've heard that there are currently two sanctuaries in Skyrim that are operating, but one is in a discreet location, so we don't know how to contact them. The other is in Dawnstar, but unfortunately the Penitus Oculatus knows that as well. I've already sent a courier on her way with the message."

"Only _two_? There are none in any other province?" My voice was bold now, and I knew I probably looked ready to murder someone. Hell, I _could_ murder someone right now.

"There may be one in Elsweyr, but all letters recently sent have been unanswered." He flicked his tail nervously.

"Alright, three sanctuaries, possibly four, that we can still work with. Garnag, I want you to travel back to Bravil and see if there's anything we can still use in the crypt. Bring back books, keys, weapons, scrolls, anything you find in there. Rasha, go to Elsweyr too see if there is anyone at that sanctuary. Cicero, look after the Night Mother."

"Where will you be?" Garnag asked.

"I'm going to try and contact the other sanctuary in Skyrim. If they truly are discreet, then they should still be working, and in no danger. I'll be leaving in three weeks."

"If anything happens to you, this will likely be the end of the Brotherhood." Cicero said, the gold in his eyes glinting desperately as he spoke. He's so sweet looking, but deadly when it comes to his career. I'm glad to have him as an assassin, and I'll make sure that nothing happens to us.

Any of us.

zzz

Garnag returned five days later with a large bag filled with a number of different things. Flowers, bones, and steel daggers were carefully set aside as we emptied the bag. What peeked my interest was a book – no, two books - with a picture of a skeletal hand joining a human hand on the cover. Cicero picked up one of the books, trying to open it, but the cover wouldn't budge. Garnag tried as well, but the same thing happened.

"Give me that," I held my hand out as Garnag gave the book to me, and I attempted to open it as well. Nothing.

Behind me, the Night Mother whispered in my ears.

"_Those are the Keeping Tomes. When in need, the Brotherhood appoints a Keeper to take care of my body, to protect it with his or her life. Until there is a Keeper, none may peer into those pages. And when there is, only the Keeper may know_."

"Is now the time to name a Keeper?" I asked.

"_No, child. Give it time_."

I nodded, and began rummaging through the pile again, finding odds and ends here and there. I found a strange dagger that was all black except for gold details on the edges. I turned it over and found an engraving that was almost impossible to read.

"Avalyn Lachance," I read quietly. That was my mother's name. Further up, almost to the tip of the blade was another engraving, "Woe," that's odd. Why would it say Woe?

"_Yes, that was your mother's Blade of Woe. It was given to her by your father, when she first joined the Dark Brotherhood. When I appointed her the Listener, she left it in my crypt, hoping that one day someone else would find it there and remember her." _

"But her last name was Endarious, not Lachance. Why would she put that?"

"_I forget you never knew your father. Avalyn never told you about him did she? His name was Lucien Lachance, one of my best assassins. The Black Hand killed him, suspecting he was a traitor. He never was, but they learned that a bit too late. In fact his grave is still outside Applewatch Farm, near Bruma_."

"Perhaps I should visit sometime," I said absently. I don't have time to ponder over these things, as much as I want to. It may seem disrespectful, but I can't have another thing hanging over my head when I'm trying to get my family back in order.

I suppose that since we don't know how long Rasha may be in Elsewyr, we should begin making preparations to restore this sanctuary – we can't postpone it any longer - and any others we find that aren't in complete ruin. We won't be able to start recruiting until everyone is here, we know we won't be in danger of the Oculatus, and contracts begin coming in. It would be bad to have able assassins with no work to do.

After all that, we should plan to restore the Shadowscale training facility of Archon, for our Argonian assassins. A Shadowscale is an Argoinian born under the sign of the Shadow, and when that happens, they are trained all their lives to become members of the Dark Brotherhood until they come of age. They are usually the best assassins we have, considering they'd trained for sixteen to twenty years prior to joining.

With that up and running, we'll have three different provinces in our service. We're barely holding onto Elsweyr and Cyrodiil as it is, so we'll have to restore at least two more sanctuaries in each to be able to get around the whole of Tamriel. Unfortunately, we cannot be stationed in Morrowind due to the Morag Tong. They're the assassins of Morrowind that is, overall, the enemy guild. We have hundreds of years of enmity between us, so when we're in each other's provinces, we know it. We're allowed to take contracts that require going into Morrowind, but beyond that would be too great a risk.

Still, we have eight provinces we can work with. Even with the current political crap going on between the Aldmeri Dominion and the rest of the world, I think it would be quite a great thing to expand. People are going nuts about war, so we would most likely get a lot of business from the people. Probably not so much from the Altmer, but you never know.

But for now, we'll work on keeping what we have. I really don't want to get ahead of myself right now. That would be a bad idea.

zzz

I leave for Skyrim in four days, and Rasha has still not returned. That could be either good or bad news. Good, because he would be staying at the sanctuary in Elsweyr, or bad because the Legion or Oculatus found him, and I think we all know how that would have ended, which I really don't want to think about. I'll keep my hopes up though, because that's all we can do.

If Rasha is dead, I'll have no one to keep the sanctuary in one piece while I'm gone. I couldn't just allow Cicero or Garnag to do it; I need someone I have my upmost faith in. Rasha is the only one. It's not that I don't trust the other two, I just… I need time to think, my head is spinning and I have to keep as calm as I can. A pacing assassin is never good for either themselves or the locals, and we need to keep Sanctuary as discreet as possible.

I sighed and pulled out the Blade of Woe. I turned it over and over, wondering what my mother did in a time of need. But she was killed when a gang of bandits ambushed her. Bandits are relatively easy opponents, but not when they take you by surprise. They ended up drowning her… I was so young when she died, only thirty. Well, in mer years that _is_ young. Almost a hundred fifty years ago. And I still have around two hundred, as long as I don't meet the fate that most assassins do in their career.

I really _don't_ want to think about this.

Author's Notes:

Flame all you want! I took out some of the last members, but that's how it goes when they have next to no importance to my story. Hope you liked it though, I'll be posting a new chapter soon, and I mean it when I say that ;)

Skyrim, events, places, characters belongs to Bethesda

Avalyn, Zorah belong to me


End file.
